You Are Enough
My favorite sweatshirt. I’m not an affiliate seller, I just want you to see it.
And you can find her awesome stuff here.
Late in the morning one Saturday months ago, I was finishing a delicious stack of pancakes. As I swallowed the last bite a young man approached our table and asked, “Excuse me?” I looked up. He was a busboy.
“I just came over,” he continued, “because I wanted to thank you for your sweatshirt. I’ve been having a hard few days and it says exactly what I needed to hear this morning. Thanks.” I beamed. Then welcomed his thanks and shared mine.
I love this sweatshirt. And I loved being reminded that I am not the only one who needs to hear: Yes, I am enough.
When I found this comfy shirt in a favorite shop I immediately had two competing thoughts. “I want to buy every single one” coupled with “are you such a dork that you are going to walk around wearing this?”
That second comment was an old script. My inner critic. She believes if you don’t feel like enough that’s confirmation you aren’t. And only people who don’t have their act together need a sweatshirt to tell them otherwise.
But, thankfully, her voice isn’t as loud as it used to be. Plus I continue to learn and work at flipping her script. That means lots of permission to choose compassionate self-talk when she speaks up.
I believe most of us, most of the time, need to internalize the phrase, “You are enough.” I know it’s true but the struggle is believing and integrating the message so that when I don’t feel it, I still know it.
Sharing this belief in our inherent enoughness is also, I think how I am an evangelist, i.e. spreading the good news of God’s love to trust and abide in the enoughness God has given you and me.
This helps me with preaching these days. As you may know, we are walking through Mark’s gospel and it hasn’t been easy listening. More like, “Enough already!”
But like the waiter in that restaurant, I take words I see and choose how to let them speak to my heart. In the verses of late (chapters 7-10), Jesus’ teachings are intense, angry even. Is it anger, I ask? Or is he frustrated with this inability to trust who we are, as we are, is enough?
That woman, who spoke up, she knew she was enough. Peter, who is terrified about what will happen, who inevitably lets his fear forsake his friendship, God does not use that against him. His failing is what leads to forgiveness.
There is the arguing over who is the greatest. The arguing over what other people will think. Plus the arguments about interpreting the laws of their time.
In all these passages I relate to the incessant looking outside of oneself for validation or correctness. Some sort of divinely definitive stamp of approval.
I hear Jesus saying over and over - don’t look outside, look in! Look within your heart. Consider that the parts you need to pluck out or cut off are the stumbling blocks in that heart of yours. The ones that get in the way of believing, as a child does, that you are enough.
That inner critic is who fuels my judging, comparing, people-pleasing, and catastrophizing. The side-effects of shame and fear.
I’ll keep choosing, preaching, and sometimes wearing - enoughness. Even way back then in Jesus’ day they were doing the best they could with the tools they had. Hard times are still here. I need to be reminded. And I believe most of us do too.
No matter what you wear or what you preach my friend, you are worthy of love and belonging.
You are enough. Always have been. Always will be.
